Brazil Can Now Freeze Illegal Betting Operators’ Funds, Not Just Block Sites

From web blocks to frozen accounts

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed Decree No. 13,033 on June 19, published in an extra edition of the official gazette, creating a formal route for Brazil to freeze the bank funds of fixed-odds betting operators that work without a license – and, after a legal process, to seize that money for the state. It pushes enforcement past the web-blocking Brazil has relied on so far, aiming instead at the payment rails that keep unlicensed books running.

Under the decree, the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) – the Finance Ministry unit that regulates the sector – can issue an irregularity report and a blocking notice once it identifies an unauthorized operator. Banks and payment institutions must then freeze the funds in related accounts within 24 hours, halt new transactions, and confirm compliance within 48 hours. The Central Bank is notified simultaneously to supervise, and a National Monetary Council (CMN) resolution will set the operational procedures.

The freeze is precautionary, not a final penalty. The National Public Security Secretariat (Senasp), under the Justice Ministry, opens and runs an administrative process in which the operator can mount a defense; only after a final ruling can the Attorney General’s Office go to court to forfeit the money. Confirmed proceeds are routed to the National Public Security Fund to bankroll the fight against organized crime, and the decree says forfeiture cannot override amounts owed to bettors. The asset-forfeiture mechanism was enabled by Brazil’s recently passed Anti-Faction Law; the decree itself regulates Article 21-A of the 2023 betting law, a provision added this year by Law 15,358.

The government framed the decree as the next escalation in a widening crackdown. Finance Minister Dario Durigan pointed to Operação Conto da Sorte, carried out June 18, which blocked 50,000 illegal sites and interrupted some 350 operators – operators he said moved money through 37 financial institutions, mostly fintechs and payment firms with light supervision. The SPA’s web-blocking cooperation with telecom regulator Anatel, in place since late 2024, has already taken down more than 50,000 illegal domains.

A companion measure published a day earlier, Portaria No. 1,766/2026, makes banks, fintechs and payment firms jointly liable for the taxes owed by the illegal operators whose money they move: if an institution keeps processing for an unlicensed book, the federal tax authority and the SPA can pursue it directly. Together, Durigan said, the measures are designed to stop the financial system from sheltering illegal bets.

The decree extends a months-long campaign that has already swept up the market’s crypto-adjacent corner. In April, Brazil’s National Monetary Council banned non-financial prediction-market contracts and the Finance Ministry moved to block platforms including Polymarket and Kalshi, after the local betting lobby pressed regulators to treat them as unlicensed bets. Lula, who has separately backed a return to a full online-betting ban that would need congressional approval, said he would fight illegal operators “by every possible means.”

Each freeze still has to survive an administrative process and a court step before anything is seized, and the CMN has yet to publish the operational rules banks will follow. The test now is how quickly the first notices go out – and whether choking the rails does what years of blocking domains could not.